DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15173#0056
38
SOIL.— SUGAR-CANE.
CHAP. II.
of the prophet; the other, the city of God ; nor is
it remarkable that the name of the Deity should
prevail.
The " Doab," between the Ravee and Chenab, is
a little better cultivated, and more fertile, than that
which we had passed. Its soil is sandy, and in its
centre the wells are but twenty-five feet deep.
Their temperature averaged about 70° of Fahren-
heit. In the morning, vapour or clouds of smoke
ascended from them, till the atmosphere was suf-
ficiently heated to hide it. At this season the cli-
mate is cold and bleak, frequently rainy, and always
cloudy. The wind generally blows from the north.
The sugar-cane thrives here ; and they were now
expressing its juice, which is extracted by placing
two wooden rollers horizontally on the top of each
other, and setting them in motion by a pair of oxen.
They turn a wheel which acts on two lesser ones,
placed vertically at right angles to it, and these
communicate with the wooden rollers. While I
examined one of these machines, the head man of
the village explained it; and then made me a pre-
sent of some " goor," or coarse sugar, the first-fruits
of the season. He was an ignorant Jut: his son
accompanied him. When I enquired into the
knowledge of the boy, and advised his being sent to
school, he replied, that education was useless to a
cultivator of the soil. The same opinion, I am sorry
to say, prevails in higher quarters ; for Runjeet and
his son are equally unlettered, and he objects to the
education of his grandson, who is otherwise a pro-
mising boy.
SOIL.— SUGAR-CANE.
CHAP. II.
of the prophet; the other, the city of God ; nor is
it remarkable that the name of the Deity should
prevail.
The " Doab," between the Ravee and Chenab, is
a little better cultivated, and more fertile, than that
which we had passed. Its soil is sandy, and in its
centre the wells are but twenty-five feet deep.
Their temperature averaged about 70° of Fahren-
heit. In the morning, vapour or clouds of smoke
ascended from them, till the atmosphere was suf-
ficiently heated to hide it. At this season the cli-
mate is cold and bleak, frequently rainy, and always
cloudy. The wind generally blows from the north.
The sugar-cane thrives here ; and they were now
expressing its juice, which is extracted by placing
two wooden rollers horizontally on the top of each
other, and setting them in motion by a pair of oxen.
They turn a wheel which acts on two lesser ones,
placed vertically at right angles to it, and these
communicate with the wooden rollers. While I
examined one of these machines, the head man of
the village explained it; and then made me a pre-
sent of some " goor," or coarse sugar, the first-fruits
of the season. He was an ignorant Jut: his son
accompanied him. When I enquired into the
knowledge of the boy, and advised his being sent to
school, he replied, that education was useless to a
cultivator of the soil. The same opinion, I am sorry
to say, prevails in higher quarters ; for Runjeet and
his son are equally unlettered, and he objects to the
education of his grandson, who is otherwise a pro-
mising boy.